He was saying that, in what he called old age, the most repugnant thing, the determining factor in decomposition, or perhaps the symbol of decomposition, was to think in preconceived ideas, combining all women in the word woman, cramming them all in carelessly to make them conform to a preconceived idea based on very scanty experience. But, he went on, not even the word experience was the right one. By then, there were no experiences left, nothing except habits and repetitions, worn-out names to apply to things and so in a way create them.

As it happens, I did not touch upon transitions (transition words and expressions) in this blog. Until now, that is. Evidently, I did not take transitions seriously enough, although I myself use them a lot. Incidentally, every sentence in this post has them.

At first glance, the information content of most transitions is close to zero. In the best case, they can make the speech appear to run more smoothly. In the worst case, they are used as more literary equivalents of “um”, “er” and other procrastination noises. (I remember a colleague whose discourse chiefly consisted of “you know”, “I mean” and “you know what I mean”.) Consequently, one could cross out all of the transitions without affecting the overall meaning of a text. In fact, I could start right away.

Still, it would be wrong to dismiss transitions as meaningless fillers used only by uncultured speakers. Far from it: transitions are found everywhere, from news to scientific publications to impenetrable legal constructions. Typically, transitions indicate

In other words, they help to convey more — or less — than unadulterated truth. Moreover, the most blatant lie will go down rather smoothly when preceded by phrase like “you won’t believe it” because the whole construction creates an impression of honesty — after all, you don’t have to believe it, right? Besides, transitions make human communication less robot-like. In particular, the mathematical passages like proofs of theorems can be made just about readable, thanks to expressions such as “similarly”, “therefore”, “thus” and “it follows that”.

Now, in Russian there is a term for the words and expressions which litter our daily speech: слова-паразиты, “parasite words”. Admittedly, many transitions behave as such parasites: they multiply, take over the conversation and suck all meaning out of it.

In my opinion, the relationship between the transition expressions and “proper” sentences is that of symbiosis (of which parasitism is a special case). More specifically, transitions are obligate endosymbionts, that is, they live inside the “host” sentences but cannot survive on their own. So to speak.In any case, transitions are with us to stay.

“Do you see, Piglet? Look at their tracks! Three, as it were, Woozles, and one, as it was, Wizzle. Another Woozle has joined them!”
And so it seemed to be. There were the tracks; crossing over each other here, getting muddled up with each other there; but, quite plainly every now and then, the tracks of four sets of paws.

A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Cat: All in all, 100% successful trip!Kryten: But sir, we’ve lost Mr Rimmer.Cat: All in all, 100% successful trip!

Father Fitzpatrick: Taken from the German advance on Russia. You can see where the hammer hits the shell casing.Father Ted: Gosh, that’s very interesting.Father Fitzpatrick: These are helmets, mostly infantry…Father Ted: Yes, these would be German as well, wouldn’t they?Father Fitzpatrick: That’s right.Father Ted: You don’t have anything from the allied side?Father Fitzpatrick: No, no. That sort of thing wouldn’t interest me at all, I’m afraid.

When people enquire
After me health-wise,
‘Not bad, considering,’ I usually say.

Christopher Matthew, Rude Health

“First, I am explaining to you how my Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker is vurrrking. Listen carefully.”
“We are listening!” cried the audience who were now jumping up and down in their chairs with excitement.
“Delayed Action Mouse-Maker is a green liqvid,” explained The Grand High Witch, “and vun droplet in each choc or sveet vill be qvite enough. So here is vot happens:
“Child eats choc vich has in it Delayed Action Mouse-Maker liqvid…
“Child goes home feeling fine…
“Child goes to bed, still feeling fine…
“Child vakes up in the morning still okay…
“Child goes to school still feeling fine…
“Formula, you understand, is delayed action, and is not vurrrking yet.”

Roald Dahl, The Witches

Now and then it would vanish for hours from the scene,
But alas, be discovered inside a tureen.